“Jeebus, we salute you!” Our military, on gawd’s steroids
4 August 2007 by Naomi
Video, Report Details Evangelism at Highest Levels of US Military
By Jason Leopold, Truthout
A report released publicly on Thursday by the Defense Department’s (DOD) inspector general has found high-ranking Army and Air Force personnel violated long-standing military regulations when they participated in a promotional video for an evangelical Christian organization while in uniform and on active duty.
The report recommended Air Force Maj. Gen. Jack Catton, Army Brig. Gen. Bob Caslen, Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks, Maj. Gen. Peter Sutton, and a colonel and lieutenant colonel whose names were redacted in the inspector general’s report, “improperly endorsed and participated with a non-Federal entity while in uniform” and the men should be disciplined for misconduct. [...]
The 47-page report was also highly critical of Pentagon Chaplain Col. Ralph G. Benson, whom the inspector general’s report accused of knowingly misleading the DOD when he requested permission from DOD officials to film a video inside the Pentagon claiming he was interested in gathering information about the Pentagon’s “own ministry.” In fact, the report says, Benson was determined to use the video to “attract new supporters” to the Christian Embassy, an evangelical organization that evangelizes members of the military and politicians in Washington, DC via daily Bible studies and outreach events. The group holds prayer breakfasts on Wednesdays in the Pentagons executive dining room, according to the organization’s web site. Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, founded the Christian Embassy 30 years ago.[...]
The Army generals who appeared in the video appeared to be speaking on behalf of the military, but they did not obtain prior permission to appear in the video. They defended their actions, according to the inspector general’s report, saying the “Christian Embassy had become a ‘quasi-Federal entity’, since the DOD had endorsed the organization to General Officers for over 25 years.” [...]
Yes, folks, this dates back to the days of St.Ronald-the-divine! Makes me feel all warm and toasty…
The report also concluded a film crew was not escorted or monitored during production of the video inside the Pentagon, and the Pentagon chaplain’s office gave at least 34 “religiously affiliated volunteers” unrestricted access to the Pentagon that allowed the individuals to move freely throughout the facility. The so-called “contractor badges” were unauthorized, the report says.
In response, the inspector general urged the administrative assistant to the Secretary of the Army and the Pentagon Force Protection Agency “initiate inquiries into the manner and appropriateness of issuance of contractor badges to volunteer personnel.” [...]
Oh, I see where all the “warm and toasty” is coming from: the nuclear arsenal that was exposed to a casual video crew by our careless but evangelical Pentagon officials. No background checks, no security clearances - just “at least 34 ‘religiously affiliated volunteers’” who everyone knows are totally trustworthy - the bible says so. That’s a bigger film crew than Spielberg uses! (And, yes, I know the “nucular” arsenal isn’t actually IN the Pentagon - that was just snark.)
Now I feel cold!
The inspector general investigated [Army Secretary Pete] Geren’s participation in the video, but determined he did not act improperly. Geren testified he was unaware the video would be used for fundraising purposes or to attract new members. He was identified in the video as “Honorable Pete Geren Presidential Appointee.”
The report said Geren, who was also a special assistant to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, has had a long-standing relationship with the Christian Embassy organization.
“According to his testimony, Mr. Geren first became involved with Christian Embassy while he was a member of the US Congress, attending Bible study and fellowship activities arranged by Christian Embassy on Capitol Hill,” the inspector general’s report states. “He said that he continued his relationship with Christian Embassy when he began work for DOD in the Pentagon, attending the Senior Executive Fellowship and Bible Study.”
Robert Varney, executive director of the Christian Embassy, testified the video was used to raise money for his organization.
The Xian Embassy video is on the website linked above.
The full DOD/IG report is a .pdf file; for those who don’t have Adobe, I haven’t found a link to HTML. But then you also can’t see the many redactions…
These fuckers are just too creepy for me!
Mikey Weinstein, founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, said in an interview:
“The report confirms the total destruction of the Constitutionally-mandated wall separating supernatural and natural, metaphysical and physical, spiritual and temporal, church and state at the highest levels of the technologically most lethal organization ever created by humankind; our honorable and noble United States military. The embarrassingly pedestrian excuses feebly offered by senior US Army and US Air Force generals and other senior officers are pathetic and not worthy of those that might have been offered by a first-grader. The fact that these senior Pentagon officials control our country’s nuclear arsenal should shake the very foundation of the American public’s trust in our country’s current leadership.” Weinstein said perhaps the most egregious aspect of the inspector general’s report is the findings that non-military personnel were given “badges” to roam freely throughout the Pentagon calling it a “shocking national security breach of the highest order.” He called for Congressional oversight hearings into the matter.
“The rise of evangelical Christianity inside the military went on steroids after 9/11 under this administration and this White House. This administration has turned the entire Department of Defense into its own personal faith-based initiative.”
4 August 2007, on 2:04 pm
Well, I guess Bush knew what he was talking about when he accidentally let it slip that we were on a crusade in Iraq.
They defended their actions, according to the inspector general’s report, saying the “Christian Embassy had become a ‘quasi-Federal entity’, since the DOD had endorsed the organization to General Officers for over 25 years.”
That is just frickin scary. Why is the DOD or any federal agency endorsing a religious organization whose only purpose is to evangelize?
/P.S. How dare you desecrate the image of the Almighty Ash. Blasphemy I say, Blasphemy!
4 August 2007, on 2:46 pm
Forgive me, Bruce, for I have sinned. But it was out of ignorance only, for I know not who the fuck Ash is.
From the pose, he must be some Bronson/Norris/Willis-clone - the “everyman-hero” we so dearly love and secretly wish we could be, if we were to embrace “total disregard for law and order”…
BTW, isn’t this one of the best places to “blapheme”? We not only allow it - we encourage it!
4 August 2007, on 2:59 pm
More evidence that the war on terror is serving to fuel fundamentalism in both Islam and Christianity. We’re at war with Muslim terrorists, so Christians have to evangelize our armed forces.
4 August 2007, on 4:10 pm
Did you really need to desecrate a photo of the Great and Powerful Bruce Campbell? Was that really necessary?
4 August 2007, on 4:24 pm
Obviously, the backdrop of this story is true, but I must admit my faith, so to speak, in Jason Leopold’s reporting was shaken by the Karl Rove affair.
Certainly he may have been the victim of one of Rove’s famous “ratfucking” disinformation campaign, but I feel that he and truthout left those of us who were hanging on the story twisting in the wind without a proper update about what went wrong with the story. If they’ve come clean about it somewhere, I’d appreciate the link and may be prepared to bury my reservations.
In any case, using our armed services as a fundie fundraising arm as a big story and I hope this reportage holds up.
4 August 2007, on 4:28 pm
My goodness, Frank Burns (the character from the film MASH) has become reality….
(in the film, he played a highly pious Christian)
4 August 2007, on 5:39 pm
I’m with AUM. Why did you have to deface Bruce? What has he ever done to you?
The worse of it is yet to come. Just think of how many of these half-wits there really are that we don’t know about. The simple fact that the religious are developing military ties along with mercernary ties give me little comfort in their goodness.
4 August 2007, on 6:10 pm
AUM and Jimmer: see comment #2. It is allowed on GifS - even when one still knows not of whom you speak. He must not be very famous…
VL, if this is in the Navy Times and Time mag, is it still dubious?
Ollie: OMG! I forgot about Frank Burns! And now that I think about him, I realize how prescient Larry Gelbart was: a fundie with a sex problem!
4 August 2007, on 6:25 pm
I was drawing a blank on who played Maj Burns in the movie. It’s been a favorite movie of mine since seeing it first-run.
It was Robert Duvall. Which surprised me. I can remember almost every other character and the actor who played that role, and can keep the movie separate from the TV show. But in my mind, for some reason, Larry Linville became the only person who played Burns.
In trivia, it is important to remember that Gary Burghoff (Radar) was the only person who made the jump from movie to TV…
4 August 2007, on 7:32 pm
AUM and Jimmer: see comment #2. It is allowed on GifS - even when one still knows not of whom you speak. He must not be very famous…
Naomi, you don’t know Evil Dead and Army of Darkness? They are classics! My hubby, and my sons own the films on video and DVD. Army of Darkness is hilarious.
4 August 2007, on 8:09 pm
He must not be very famous…
OK, now you’ve done it
You’ve gone off and insulted the only god I truly worship.
I shall have to put a curse on you: “Klaatu verrata nectu”
4 August 2007, on 8:19 pm
Naomi
Such blasphemy. You better hope “HE” didn’t hear you. You may need to be looking over your shoulder a little more frequently. And pay special close attention to any walking dead whom you may encounter. Sheesh, Not Famous?
4 August 2007, on 8:32 pm
Uhh, I think I get it. Zombies. Undead. (*shakes head*) And as you see, I really, REALLY don’t get it. That’s not a film genre I ever understood. Psychological thrillers? Oh, yeah! Zombies/vampires/werewolves? Not a lick of interest. And that goes for Lovecraft’s *unpronounceable* monster.
To each his own…
4 August 2007, on 8:36 pm
Naomi,
Time mag? Then it has to be legit. They don’t let Joe Klein and Bill Kristol just make up shit, do they. :v)
4 August 2007, on 8:59 pm
Naomi
What’s not to understand? Here is classic Bruce Campbell. Enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWaSYkx1l_M
4 August 2007, on 9:17 pm
My favorite part –
Army Of Darkness: Good, Bad, I’m The Guy With The Gun
4 August 2007, on 10:01 pm
Well, it is at least sad that those sworn to protect and defend the Constitution have not read the Constitution. The video is just creepy and disgusting. Thanks, Naomi.
4 August 2007, on 10:30 pm
trailrider, thanks for getting us back ON TOPIC!
Yes, and it’s even criminal High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Not to mention Sedition.
The subversive takeover of the US government - and protected by the media who “aid and abet” by being silent. They’ve been conditioned to give religion a free pass - no scrutiny, no criticism. Gord & Jeebus are Sacred.
Without the ‘webs, Mikey Weinstein’s fight would be buried, ignored and maybe Mikey would be “disappeared” or sent down the bottomless rat-hole of “secret prisons”.
I’ve gone from a paranoid ColdWar/duck&cover childhood to the relaxation of rules&standards of the Sixties. To the PeaceMarching/Impeachment Seventies. To the St.Ronnie-the-Divine “let’s bring back the ColdWar Paranoia” Eighties. To the prosperity and relative peace of the Nineties. To -
- a time when I can say words like sedition and “disappeared” and “secret prisons” and not be locked up in an asylum for “acute tinfoil poisoning”. Rather, most of us online know that this is all quite probable…
Once in a while, it flashes in my head that I really don’t want to see “what’s next”.
4 August 2007, on 10:40 pm
Jimmer and Stardust: I watched most of the long one and all of the short one and saw only one thing:
I’d rather talk about the Department of Defense’s problems, since they acutely affect all of us.
4 August 2007, on 11:14 pm
Well, the US military in Iraq has pretty much thrown out the Geneva Convention my shooting at enemy combatants with large caliber weapons. When I was 25 years ago we were expressly told you can’t shoot an personnel with .50 cal or larger, due to the Geneva Convention. Yet I’ve seen them shooting insurgents with 40mm grenades, tank rounds, 25mm cannon, .50 cal, 20mm, rockets, missiles, you name it.
I guess they can justify it because the enemy isn’t from an organized army. Who the fuck knows.
4 August 2007, on 11:29 pm
Aside from all the Ha Ha film references here in the comments; what’s even scarier, to me, is the fact that the Major media will undoubtedly pay absolutely NO attention to this outrageous attack on our Constitution.
They’ll spend hours yapping about air head dingbats and their drug rehabs and jail bouts; showing them prancing and falling on fashion runways. And, of course their mindless relations with every, doped up, male rocker fuckhead. Or…alternatively…endless coverage of bridge collapses and highway police chases!
Important issues to our Secular Democracy, like this one, are only made aware to us [I'm assuming here] by a ‘vast’ minority of ‘Underground Internet’ watchdogs; and of course (my kudos here) by our ‘Mistress of Alertness’…Naomi.
My kidding Naomi is an immediate personal defense mechanism; much like others here venturing into movie humor, I guess. Of course this matter is certainly no joke…not even close!
The video really does make it look like the Christian Nazis have pretty much taken over; not only our military, but from the look of the 2008 clone-like ‘prospectus’ of future candidates, our whole government.
After watching and reading that mind numbing example of how stupid the world is becoming in this dangerous Nuclear Age…
I have to ask:
Are there any, entities amongst the whole panoply of characters occupying the White House, Pentagon, Senate, House and Upper echelons of the rest of the Military Industrial Complex…with even a surviving REMNANT of viable Rational, Critical thinking ability?
If there are any; where are they hiding?
To let off a tiny modicum of long term pent up steam; I say:
(cue Large Auditorium Reverb and Echo!)
FUCK CHRISTIAN FASCISTS and…
FUCK THE CHRISTIAN EMBASSY!!!
IMPEACH BUSH, CHENEY, and…and…
And Yeah…again; for the ‘Nth’ time…
AAAAAAARRRRRRGH-GH-GH-GH!!!
[Am I turning green?...you know, like the incredible ChuckA hulk? I guess not! I see no sign of inflated muskles!]
(Oh great!…More spittle to wipe up!)
5 August 2007, on 12:08 am
I agree with you there ChuckA, this will get almost no airtime. I wonder what would happen if they were doing a film for the FFRF instead? I guess O’Reilly would have a new “war on religion” to talk about for the next few months.
7 August 2007, on 2:35 am
[...] In “Jeebus, we salute you!” Our military, on gawd’s steroids, I posted excerpts from Jason Leopold’s Truthout post Video, Report Details Evangelism at Highest Levels of US Military. [...]
7 August 2007, on 7:01 pm
Trailrider: I posted this comment at Atheist Revolution and then followed your link here.
Naomi: Hope you don’t mind the “repeat”.
“It just makes me sad that those sworn to protect and defend the Constitution have not read the Constitution.”
It makes me sad too, but it shouldn’t surprise you. Those that believe in and defend the Bible can’t have read it either. Or, if they did, there was a lot of denial and selective reading going on.
NPR broke this story about the USAF about two years ago. At least, I think it was about two years ago, just around the time that Kenneth Tomlinson tried to screw anything that wasn’t marching in lock-step with the Neo-Cons. The result: more faith-based programming, and woo woo crap like Dr. Wayne Dyer. Lets hope that Time can stand up to the sneaky-ass shit storm that is likely to follow this latest salvo. And speaking of salvos, where would you expect the control-freaks in church clothing to gravitate? I bet they get all sweaty and start breathing hard every time they think of using all those guns to liquidate those who won’t buy into their bullshit.
If they do manage to get too tight a control on the military, that will indeed be the beginning of the end. Imagine, any un-orthodox protest or march, no matter how peaceful, can be infiltrated by hired goons who start trouble, and hey presto! Here comes the National Guard to start busting heads indiscriminately. The end justifies the means, after all.
7 August 2007, on 7:14 pm
Chuck A said:
“They’ll spend hours yapping about air head dingbats and their drug rehabs and jail bouts; showing them prancing and falling on fashion runways. And, of course their mindless relations with every, doped up, male rocker fuckhead. Or…alternatively…endless coverage of bridge collapses and highway police chases!”
“… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man,
the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time
handed out military command, high civil office, legions - everything, now
restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things:
bread and circuses” - Juvenal, 1st Century AD.
8 August 2007, on 1:32 am
breakerslion: I read your comments and thank you for leaving a link back to GifS.
Isn’t it skin-crawling disgusting how they’ve tried to ruin so much of America that is beneficial for everyone? NPR is only one of them. It used to be a dependable source for in-depth and accurate news. Now? Not so much, sad to say…
On the followup/companion piece about the dangers of letting religion get “a foot in the door”, I make the point that they never settle for less 101% of whatever they seek to take over. They devour like locusts, don’t they?